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California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

latimes.com

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Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#151

Post by yamike »

rdtsc wrote: post #18

Are there any good ITT / University of Phoenix type schools? They all seem like scams. I don't count community colleges here, I know those can be very good. My wife went to one, got great education, was able to pay it by just budgeting money every month out of her part time work. Then switched to a 4 years univeristy, transfered credits and graduated with honors after 2 more years (with minimal loans). Would it be ha…

As someone who attended ITT Tech for software I would strongly recommend going for a traditional BS in Comp Sci or something similar. Initially once I landed a job I was okay, but as I have advanced in my career I have more and more moments when I really miss a fundamental understanding of various computer science topics. Whether that is a better grasp of algorithms and how to judge performance of various designs or database theory and its implications for complex data driven systems - I find myself wishing I had taken the "hard road" instead of going for the quick degree.

There have been a number of times I have sat staring at my monitor thinking that I just don't know enough to solve the problem at hand. That instead of spending days on the issue for someone better educated it would take hours.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#152

Post by tathougies »

gambiting wrote: post #138
greggman wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this arguably the real issue. I'm all for the government funding education as long as it's effective education and not overpriced. In the case though they effectively put up a "Free Money" sign with nearly zero strings attached.

Like in UK? Where everyone gets a student loan from the government, but no university(and that includes Oxford and Cambridge) is allowed to charge more than 9k(roughly $12k) a year? You also don't start paying back until you have a job that pays more than a certain amount per year, and you have 40 years to pay it off - if you don't, it's forfeit.

To be fair, if you make your minimum payments on federal US loans for 25 years, the loan is forgiven (although you are taxed on the amount forgiven). The income based repayment or the public service option means that you may never even touch the principal and still have your loan forgive .

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#153

Post by bhaumik »

ameen wrote: post #150
bhaumik wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+ a $5000 upfront deposit. We* do the opposite and offer a 100% refund if the student isn't employed as a developer within 6 months of graduation. As for the original comment, some coding bootcamps are starting to publish stats on graduate rate/outcomes (a few of which are also 3rd-party audited). The industry as a whole still has some bad eggs, but it's getting better. https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/25/students-are-…

While I'm not really big on "Online Bootcamps", I'd like to see metrics or even success stories from Thinkful. What real-world skills does a typical Thinkful grad possess?

Sure, here are some 3rd-party verified metrics: https://www.thinkful.com/bootcamp-jobs-stats/.

Students focus on web development in JavaScript, specifically React & Node. I run our Full Time program where students gain experience in "thinking" like an engineer as they learn a new skill on their own (enough to present it to the group) during "Flex week", work on polishing the features of an unfinished app during "Swap week", collaborate in a larger team in the 3 week "capstone project" where they divide responsibilities and assign clear roles, develop wireframes/specs, and join daily standups led by our instructors to prioritize features/descope when needed.

You can dig more into the curriculum/day-to-day schedule here: https://www.thinkful.com/bootcamp/web-development/full-time/. If you have questions not answered or clarified enough by that page, you can reach me by email (in bio) for anything else. Always welcome to constructive feedback as this specific program is only 7 months old.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#154

Post by acjohnson55 »

buddylw wrote: post #47
rdtsc wrote: post #18

Are there any good ITT / University of Phoenix type schools? They all seem like scams. I don't count community colleges here, I know those can be very good. My wife went to one, got great education, was able to pay it by just budgeting money every month out of her part time work. Then switched to a 4 years univeristy, transfered credits and graduated with honors after 2 more years (with minimal loans). Would it be ha…

The quality of education varies between institutions. I graduated from DeVry a little over 10 years ago. I got a decent education (ABET accredited B.S. Computer Engineering Technology) and was able to put myself through school and get a good job. I could have done it a little cheaper in a state school and a lot cheaper with a community college, but for what it was I don't really have any regrets. My only critique is…

I went to NYU for a masters program, and it was similar in some ways. They accepted almost anyone who applied, so the students were on a spectrum between extremely motivated and barely present. That said, the quality of the permanent faculty and some of the facilities was world class. But you had to be assertive to get the most out of it. A lot of the most motivated students had a great experience. Some of the unmotivated ones got what they were looking for too, they basically bought a masters degree, or at least some time in a masters program. Many in the middle were disappointed. This is probably not uncommon in higher ed, where technical masters programs are treated like profit centers.

My understanding of the for-profit institutions is that the able sort of division exists, but it tends to be a lot more stark.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#155

Post by cm2187 »

crazy1van wrote: post #51

I agree with a lot of the complaints I've heard about ITT. They seem to broadly fall into three camps: 1) They are expensive and rely on their students getting gov't loans, 2) They don't adequately prepare students for the work place, and 3) The teachers aren't very good. I think those are all great reasons to not go to ITT. But, I think those reasons could also apply to a whole lot of other schools, profit, non-prof…

In fact what makes the quality of a university is really the quality of its students. It is completely self-fulfilling. Good reputation attracts good students who will become good researchers, or do successful careers, further contributing to the good reputation.

In a way universities are competing for a finite resource (smart and hard working students). Unless we as a society find a way to increase the supply of smart and hard working students.

Hard working we can do by more social pressure.

Smart,... Hum. We get into the nature vs nurture debate, on which philosophers and sociologists fight over, but which should really be settled by neuro-scientists!

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#156

Post by duncan_bayne »

bdcravens wrote: post #114
duncan_bayne wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proponents of taxpayer funded education, and unions, frequently attack high performing private schools, at least here in Australasia. That said, it doesn't sound like this is one of the high performing schools.

> high performing private schools This is not how I'd categorize ITT.

I agree. But with the tendency towards political attacks on for-profit education, the OP's question was quite reasonable.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#157

Post by duncan_bayne »

colechristensen wrote: post #17
duncan_bayne wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proponents of taxpayer funded education, and unions, frequently attack high performing private schools, at least here in Australasia. That said, it doesn't sound like this is one of the high performing schools.

There is a very big difference between a private university and a for-profit school.

Educate me ;) Seriously, I'd be interested to know what you see the difference is.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#158

Post by swiley »

splicer wrote: post #41
iamdave wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me flip that around and offer that I've had "technical" recruiters fail their end of this transaction as well. One experience involved a recruiter who wanted a compete rewrite of a CV portion outlining a SQL project from planning to continuous implementation models I built. This on top of 8 years of other experience in data design and management. The recruiter wanted to pass on my resume because I had failed to i…

> refusing to hire a qualified electrical engineer because he didn't list AA Batteries on his resume LOL! It won't be long before the majority of EEs under 25 won't even know what an AA battery is. In fact, I bet it would be pretty hard today to find someone in their 20s who knows what a 9-volt is.

Some of the low power circuits in older amateur radio books use 9-volts.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#159

Post by acjohnson55 »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #87
sanderjd wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But...if you learn all that stuff, isn't programming pretty easy? It's just specific abstractions on top of the fundamentals you already know... (I don't mean to be dismissive, I'm honestly mystified by your perspective here.)

All the stuff I mentioned has essentially zero application to writing a server script or a website backend or a commercial application, is the thing. It's like knowing car engines backwards and forwards, but never actually getting to drive one. I should mention, also, that our programming exercises were in C++ exclusively, on the campus Unix system exclusively, and the only development environment we were ever offici…

It's unfortunate that you're getting downvoted, because I think you're speaking the truth. I had a similar experience as someone who was trained to be a computer engineer 10 years ago, but actually make my living doing modern web systems development. Don't get me wrong, I had an awesome experience in undergrad on all fronts. But it would be inaccurate to say my course work was particularly applicable to my actual profession.

I suspect you were down voted because there are a lot of people who went the traditional route into programming who now feel threatened by (or at least indignant towards) people coming in via accelerated routes like bootcamps and self-teaching.

The reality is that the universities _should_ be doing a better job.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#160

Post by timdev2 »

Ologn wrote: post #82
sanderjd wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But...if you learn all that stuff, isn't programming pretty easy? It's just specific abstractions on top of the fundamentals you already know... (I don't mean to be dismissive, I'm honestly mystified by your perspective here.)

I talked to a number of seniors majoring in computer science at a decent college not long ago - none of them knew what software version control was. While, or right after, taking these theoretical courses in Java or graphics or whatnot, I would launch a project in that area to ground all that theory in something I could then manifest. I don't think this occurred to many of them, but to be fair, they are young and hav…

> none of them knew what software version control was.

I was pretty intimately familiar with CVS by the time I graduated (very late in the 90s). But now that I think about it, it was probably introduced in an "Intro to C and Unix" which was a 1-credit class one of the faculty forced as a pre-req for certain higher-level courses like those on compilers. It was a crash-course on C (for students who had mainly used Pascal in their first year or two), Unix philosophy, and some associated tools (make, cvs, vi/emacs).

It only met the first third of the semester, so it could be taken concurrently with the class the required it. I wonder if other schools do something similar. It worked quite well, since by the the time you got up to speed, it was time to start building lexers in the compilers course.

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